


kill bill sirens

by theredhoodie



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: F/M, Shippy if you Squint, book tie in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 07:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18361832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: Laura finds herself in Lakeside in the early winter to find Shadow, but instead she ends up half drowned and saved by Hinzelmann, whose kind face masks his true intent.





	kill bill sirens

**Author's Note:**

> This will mean nothing to anyone who hasn't read the book, just FYI. I mixed one of my favorite parts of the book (Lakeside and everything that comes with it, especially the scene at the end with Shadow and Hinzelmann) with the characterization of the tv show. Hypothetically this would happen in early season 3, after Laura's resurrection (which I really hope happens soon tbh). I tried to explain things as well as I could in the fic without getting too expositional.
> 
> Also, I just really wanted to write Mad Sweeney rage at someone. ~~especially over Laura's safety but that's beside the point~~

The ice was thinner than it looked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She blinked, squinting at the light. Sun shone through a window, blinding her. The world seemed to be moving while she stood still.

Where was she? It could be a kitchen, or a diner, or a living room...nothing was solid enough for her to figure it out.

She startled at the sound of a voice, loud and clear.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?"

She turned, or the world turned and she found herself looking at a man she knew, briefly, here and there. A nice suit of extravagant colors and patterns, hair a mess of curls atop his head. Anansi...or Mr. Nancy? She tried to speak but found that she couldn't. Her hand felt cold against her throat.

"Laura Moon or McCabe or whatever the fuck you're going by now...long since dead, alive again, against all odds. You really know how to stick around where you're not wanted."

Without her voice, she glared at him and flipped him off.

Mr. Nancy laughed and his image shifted. He had eight eyes and then two, was something primal and then suave. "I think this is a perfect time for a story, don't you?" He waved his hands in a flourish before steepling them in front of his chest. Heavy rings sat on his fingers.

"Do you know the story of the monkey's paw? No? Well, sit the fuck down and be entertained. See, there's this shriveled little monkey's paw, cut off from some deity or some shit, I don't even remember, all that was almost before my time. Anyway, mummified monkey's paw pops up in the modern world, is put on display in this fancy, dark, creepy, gothic looking business in where else but England. Those fucking Anglo-Saxon fucks just take every goddamned thing, don't they?"

Laura arched an eyebrow, crossed her arms, tried to feel her toes, and waited for the story to gain some relevance.

"So this paw, it gets a reputation. Grants wishes, like a genie in a fucking lamp. You get anything you want from it. Money, fame, a bigger dick? You got it. Three wishes per customer, as the rules go. And people used it. They used it and then it ended up back in a window somewhere, ready to cast its fortune to another."

Anansi stepped close, face twisted into something thoroughly inhuman. Laura's throat burned but she couldn't move away. "Fuckers used it left and right but there was a catch. You ask for money, and you get it, but it's dirty money and you get caught by the cops and tossed into jail. Want that bigger dick? Sure but you ain't never gonna get hard again. Or you wish bad tidings for someone who done you wrong, and suddenly their entire family line dies horrific deaths and you find out you're related to them too, and die run over a train. You get the picture."

Laura tilted her head to the side. She couldn't really feel much of her legs anymore and something tickled the back of her brain. Like she knew she wasn't supposed to be here. She was meant to be doing something else.

"No? Look, I'm a  _trickster_  I'm not evil. Not the way some people can be. And I say people because...Y'all. Made. Us. We're reflections of your freaky human condition. If anyone's evil, it's humans. And fuck, if people die? That's just life, isn't it? I spin tales and trick and whisper, but my hands be clean. Never one for the actual life taking shit. No thank you. I need humans to survive, don't I?" He slapped his hands together, Mr. Nancy again in an impeccable suit. He had a fedora on now.

"So when I say this, maybe you should listen to me: Be careful what you wish for and _wake up_!" He lifted his and and flicked her forehead.

She felt  _pulled_  like when she was in that dead place, ready to face an eternity in hell before being yanked back to earth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laura was keenly aware that she was no longer dead and she needed to  _breathe_. The water around her was frigid and she struggled to the surface, her winter layers absorbing half the lake.

She hadn't come this far to a new life just to die  _again_.

She kicked and clawed at the water and her lungs were fit to burst when she finally felt a yank and flopped out onto solid ground.

She rolled and retched up the water she'd inevitably sucked in and started shaking immediately. Water leaked out of her coat when she tried to cross her arms around herself.

"You're all right," someone said beside her. "You're all right, miss."

Shivering, Laura's eyes focused on the person who'd dragged her out of the water. An old man, with tufted hair under a knit cap and a thick coat. Her brain stuttered, telling her that he looked far too frail to have grabbed her out of the water but she was thankful for the help anyway.

"Y-yeah," she said, teeth chattering. She searched her memory, wondering why she was on the ice, why she was here, what she was doing...it was cold as balls up here, colder than it should have been if you asked her. Winter had just begun according to the calendar year, and yet it had already settled heavily here. "T-than-nk you."

He helped her up, but she couldn't feel her legs.

If human bodies had survival modes, hers went into one and she barely remembered ending up in a cozy cabin. Hours must have passed because the sun was gone from the sky when she opened her eyes next.

She was in water again and panicked for a moment before her hands found the edges of a porcelain clawfoot tub and she realized she wasn't drowning again. The water was lukewarm but at least she wasn't shivering.

She was, however, practically naked. Which normally wouldn't bother her but she didn't know where she was.

"Oh good, you're awake," the old man from the lake said. He kept a respectful distance. "Sorry about that, had to dry your clothes and didn't want to warm you up too fast."

"Where am I?" she asked, her voice rough from sucking in icy water. She spotted a towel folded next to the tub and used it to dry off and took the offered worn flannel blanket to wrap herself in.

"You're at my place," the man said. He held out a hand. "Richie Hinzelmann. Hinzelmann's fine."

Her hand trembled when she loosely shook his. "Thanks, I guess." She didn't offer her name, merely moving toward the roaring fire in the middle of the room. She stood a little bit back from it, close enough to feel the heat, but not close enough to feel singed.

"What were you doing out there on the ice? It's not frozen through yet. I'd give it another two weeks."

"Wish I'd known that earlier," she said with a slight scoff. She sat down on the floor and rubbed her feet, which ached like she'd just run a marathon in heels. She sucked in a breath through her clenched teeth as she worked the life back into them.

The man stood behind the high backed armchair, the flames sending shuddery shadows across most of the room and notably, the man's face. "Don't get too many strangers 'round these parts. Least not this time of year. We're a pretty nice place, Lakeside, when it's spring."

Laura let out a shaky breath and tried to remember. It was like a cloud of fog had taken residence in her brain. An unfoggy part of her brain told her it was probably some kind of magic but it wasn't like she could do anything about it. She lifted her eyes to Hinzelmann as he shuffled closer to the fireplace.

"I was looking for someone."

"Oh? I'm the unofficial, official welcome wagon here. I'd probably know them." He smiled at her.

She found herself a little more at ease as her muscles warmed and came back to life. "My...his name is Shadow."

Silhouettes danced across Hinzelmann's face. "Hmm…" He turned his back to her and poked at the fire. "Can't say I've heard that name."

And then the front door flew back on its hinges.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Sweeney saw was Laura on the floor, tiny and wet and sitting in a blanket, and Hinzelmann, like a black soot smear against the fire, bare hand wrapped around the handle of a hot poker, the end red as the sun.

In all of two seconds, he slipped from relieved at finding her, to flat out pissed for her going off on her own, to flat out anger boiling into a hot, fiery rage in the pit of his stomach at the glint in the murdering fuck's eyes.

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER!" His voice boomed out of him, shaking the walls of the tidy cabin.

Laura flinched. Hinzelmann dropped the poker and it burned a hole in the rug.

"Get up," Sweeney told her, not taking his eyes off Hinzelmann.

"Don't tell me what to do," she grumbled out, getting to her feet and taking a moment to decide between the old man and the angry one and she choose rightly, taking a tiny step toward Sweeney.

He turned his rage back toward the man by the fire, who was sliding in front of the fire, trying to make it to the door. "DON'T YOU FUCKING MOVE! You are fucking dead, you sadistic fuck."

Hinzelmann stayed by the fire, clasping his hands in front of him. He was shaking and quivering like a kid being yelled at. Sweeney's skin crawled even being in the same room with the kobold.

"Did you touch her?" he asked, pointing a finger through the air Hinzelmann. He stepped forward, putting himself between Hinzelmann and Laura. "If you put a single fucking finger on her I swear to fuck I will break you, old man."

"I had to," the old man said. "You know the rules. Grimnir's rules."

" _ **Fuck**_  Grimnir," Sweeney spat out.

"Hey!" Laura said, tugging at his sleeve. "Hello? I'm right here. I'm fine. What the fuck are you doing?"

"Get your shit," he told her, but he never took his eyes off Hinzelmann.

"Excuse me?"

He sighed, closing his eyes and breathing out. "God dammit, woman, just get your clothes."

The cooling space inside the cabin fell silent, broken comedically by the dryer buzzing in the other room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She had never seen Sweeney look so fucking furious...murderous even. She wasn't scared of him but she pitied the little old man toward whom he was pointing his wrath. She knew there had to be a reason, but Hinzelmann had literally saved her life.

She snapped her mouth closed and found her clothes, eavesdropping. It was hard not to, Sweeney's voice filling the whole cabin. Hinzelmann's voice was harder to hear.

"The  _fuck_  is wrong with you? She's not one of your runaway kids you can just fucking... _take_  you fucking bastard."

"I do what I need to to stay alive. Don't you?"

"So you pull her out your cesspool of a sacrificial pit to what...kill her nice and slow here in the comfort of your creepy fucking cabin in the woods?"

"I need the fear. I don't often kill adults, but I'll take what I can get. I don't...I'm not malicious."

"The fuck you aren't!"

Most of Laura's clothes were dry enough, but her jacket was still soaked so she left it. She pulled on a nearly dry hat to cover her ears and her gloves which were thin but warm. Her boots were by the fire. She took a deep breath and walked back into the room, colder after being away from the fireplace. By now, Sweeney had cornered Hinzelmann and Laura quickly grabbed her boots. They were damp and almost hot to the touch.

"Hey," she said, walking toward the both of them like one would walk toward a snarling dog. She put her hand on Sweeney's arm. He let go of where he was holding Hinzelmann against the wall, hands squeezing the old man's throat.

She should have been used to people wanting to kill her, but it was starting to get old. She turned instead to Hinzelmann, who looked innocent enough. But then again, so did she and she'd killed plenty of people. "You tried to kill me?" she asked, her voice level.

The old man's face took on eons and she could see guilt there, but it wasn't enough. "I had no choice. Grimnir told me to take care of anyone looking for Shadow Moon."

Laura nodded slowly. If there was an expression that was a thousand times stronger than 'thorn in her side', then that was what Wednesday was to her. "Okay," she said, stepping back and starting toward the door, gaping open and letting out all the heat from the fire.

"Okay?" Sweeney echoed from behind her. "You can't be fucking serious."

She sighed and turned to face him. "Look at him." Hinzelmann looked feeble, paltry. "He's not worth it."

Sweeney breathed through his nose. "He is if you know what he's doing here."

"Tell me in the car," she said, turning on her heel.

He didn't follow right away. Of course he couldn't leave without a final threat: "You're gonna get caught one of these days for killing all those god damn kids."

"It's in my nature," Hinzelmann said, followed by what sounded like a child crying.

"Fuck," Sweeney muttered, coming up behind her with a rush of hot air. They got into the awaiting car and he cranked up the heat and gave her his jacket before they'd even driven away.

They were over the bridge out of town before Laura spoke, digesting everything she'd heard and trying to piece it together. "You're telling me that little old man is a murderer."

"Yes. And he is not a little old man. Did he show himself to you?"

Laura raised her eyebrows at him. "Gross. No."

He didn't even acknowledge the humor in her answer, just kept his eyes forward and hands gripping the wheel. "He's old, like me, but he's living a hell of a fucking life in this fucked up paradise of a town."

"It's cold as fuck, I wouldn't call it a paradise."

"Nothing bad ever happens there. You know why? Because  _Hinzelmann_  kills a kid. One a year, like clockwork. He runs his own god damn blood sacrifice. It powers him up."

Laura swallowed hard. She didn't like kids. Didn't mean she thought they should be murdered to keep a dying deity alive. "Shit," she said, because it was all she could think of.

"And he can hide people from gods, from prying eyes. So yeah, Shadow's there, but that's got nothing to do with you." He sighed. "Hinzelmann...you want to know what he really looks like?"

The way he said it made her stomach turn. She really didn't want to know. "Yes," she said stubbornly instead.

"Okay. He's a fucking kid. Just a kid, shot through with a handful of swords. Crying, bleeding all the fucking time. Forever."

She blinked and bit her lips and stared out the window, refusing to let tears surface. Anansi's words came back to her, about not being evil, that the humans that create their gods are the evil ones.

"And he kills kids." Sweeney said it finitely. End of conversation, history lesson done. She didn't need to hear him say the words to know that Sweeney disagreed with such a life, such a sacrifice. It was a disgusting, perverted thing.

Laura pulled her legs onto the seat and fisted the excess material from the long sleeves of his jacket into her palms, squeezing hard until she stopped feeling like vomiting and crying all at once.


End file.
